But whatever happened to his notes for the Fritz novel - did he burn them, were they lost?
Honestly, I have no idea. They might have gotten lost in 1933. Renember, TM was on a lecture tour abroad when the Nazis arrived and never came back. Erika and Klaus were in Germany. I mean, I know Erika was able to get her father's then current manuscript and some more papers out of their house before leaving, but inevitably this can't have been everything, and she must have prioritized some stuff.
Alternatively, maybe Thomas did throw his notes into the fire when finding out Heinrich in his final years was tackling hte subject!
Re: Heinrich, it was one of the last things he wrote, trying to do it in film script style and wanting it to be an antidote to the Fridericus movies with Gebühr, but he didn't finish it. I have only read quotes so far, though, not everything.
His mix of drama and taking himself too seriously is something else.
More from Thomas' notebooks: Feeling hatred makes me suffer like nothing else does. Compared to Heinrich the Noble, Cold One, I am a soft Plebejan, but I have much more hunger for power in me. Not for nothing is Savanarola my hero. One hates where that achieves power which one despises. I'm not supposed to hate you because my part is to love? No, I hate you all the more, because you awake more hate in me, for most of all I hate those who point out the weaknesses in my character through the emotions they awake in me.
Meanwhile, son Klaus wrote in one of his diaries when reading Dad's "Betrachtungen eines Unpolitischen" that if he survives Dad, he'll so write the definite book about Dad and Heinrich. (Yet one more reason to regret his suicide. I'd love to have seen him tackle the two.)
Oh, and I have to give you this quote, from when sister Lula (aka Julia Minor) and her husband Löhr and Thomas are all upset with Heinrich because of Die Jagd nach Liebe, and I have to give it in Thomas' untranslated prose. It's that kind of quote. Written to Heinrich back when they were having it out about "Die Jagd nach Liebe":
Oft kommt jetzt das Gespräch auf Dich bei Löhrs, wo ich zweimal die Woche zu Mittag esse. Wir sitzen dann und machen alle drei sehr ernste, fast leidende Gesichter. Jeder sagt ein halbwegs gescheites Sprüchlein über Dich, Für und Wider, und dann tritt stummes Grübeln ein. Endlich sage ich: "Der Fall Heinrich ist nämlich ein Fall, über den ich stundenlang nachdenken kann." "Ich auch", sagt Lula. "Ich auch", sagt Löhr. Und wiederum nach einer Pause sage ich mit orakelhafter Betonung: "Daß er uns allen so viel zu schaffen macht, beweist, daß er mehr ist, als wir Alle."
Btw, while we don't have Heinrich's pre WWWI letters, we do have a draft for his reply to letter to Thomas' original "Why your latest novel sucks" letter. In said draft, Heinrich repays the compliment by coming up with this line of argumentation:
(Thomas had complained that even when the hero, Claude, is dying, he doesn't just reflect on his beloved Ute's great qualities but also on her thighs, and this is an example for how all the sex stuff ruins Heinrich's writing style.)
(Slightly paraphrased)
1. Claude loves Ute's laughter, and he loves her thighs. Both are part of her, and it would have felt wrong if the erotic aspect of his love for her would have been denied in this farewell. But I'm not surprised you don't get that, because
2. All your female characters are castrated, and with one exception, they just exist to feed your male characters lines.
3. The one exception is Tony Buddenbrook. She's your single female character who exists not just for the benefit of a male character but because you're actually interested in her. But even there, you're just allowing her some romantic notions misguiding her, not sexual longings. Poor Tony is castrated, too.
Yes, he does use the term "kastriert", "all Deine Frauenfiguren sind kastriert" . In the draft, at least; like I said, we don't have the actual letter, and even this draft was lost for eons, which is why it's not in the 1990s edition of the corrspondence, but I've come across it in the later Heinrich biographies. Bearing in mind Heinrich writes this in 1904 - meaning that several important female characters in Thomas Mann's oeuvre are yet to come, including old Lotte in "Lotte in Weimar" - it's, in terms of TM's early works, a palpable hit and that he bothered to make it shows Heinrich wasn't always so above quarelling for non-WWI reasons as he would have wanted to be.
Re: Thomas Mann gets an idea
Honestly, I have no idea. They might have gotten lost in 1933. Renember, TM was on a lecture tour abroad when the Nazis arrived and never came back. Erika and Klaus were in Germany. I mean, I know Erika was able to get her father's then current manuscript and some more papers out of their house before leaving, but inevitably this can't have been everything, and she must have prioritized some stuff.
Alternatively, maybe Thomas did throw his notes into the fire when finding out Heinrich in his final years was tackling hte subject!
Re: Heinrich, it was one of the last things he wrote, trying to do it in film script style and wanting it to be an antidote to the Fridericus movies with Gebühr, but he didn't finish it. I have only read quotes so far, though, not everything.
His mix of drama and taking himself too seriously is something else.
More from Thomas' notebooks: Feeling hatred makes me suffer like nothing else does. Compared to Heinrich the Noble, Cold One, I am a soft Plebejan, but I have much more hunger for power in me. Not for nothing is Savanarola my hero. One hates where that achieves power which one despises. I'm not supposed to hate you because my part is to love? No, I hate you all the more, because you awake more hate in me, for most of all I hate those who point out the weaknesses in my character through the emotions they awake in me.
Meanwhile, son Klaus wrote in one of his diaries when reading Dad's "Betrachtungen eines Unpolitischen" that if he survives Dad, he'll so write the definite book about Dad and Heinrich. (Yet one more reason to regret his suicide. I'd love to have seen him tackle the two.)
Oh, and I have to give you this quote, from when sister Lula (aka Julia Minor) and her husband Löhr and Thomas are all upset with Heinrich because of Die Jagd nach Liebe, and I have to give it in Thomas' untranslated prose. It's that kind of quote. Written to Heinrich back when they were having it out about "Die Jagd nach Liebe":
Oft kommt jetzt das Gespräch auf Dich bei Löhrs, wo ich zweimal die Woche zu Mittag esse. Wir sitzen dann und machen alle drei sehr ernste, fast leidende Gesichter. Jeder sagt ein halbwegs gescheites Sprüchlein über Dich, Für und Wider, und dann tritt stummes Grübeln ein. Endlich sage ich: "Der Fall Heinrich ist nämlich ein Fall, über den ich stundenlang nachdenken kann." "Ich auch", sagt Lula. "Ich auch", sagt Löhr. Und wiederum nach einer Pause sage ich mit orakelhafter Betonung: "Daß er uns allen so viel zu schaffen macht, beweist, daß er mehr ist, als wir Alle."
Btw, while we don't have Heinrich's pre WWWI letters, we do have a draft for his reply to letter to Thomas' original "Why your latest novel sucks" letter. In said draft, Heinrich repays the compliment by coming up with this line of argumentation:
(Thomas had complained that even when the hero, Claude, is dying, he doesn't just reflect on his beloved Ute's great qualities but also on her thighs, and this is an example for how all the sex stuff ruins Heinrich's writing style.)
(Slightly paraphrased)
1. Claude loves Ute's laughter, and he loves her thighs. Both are part of her, and it would have felt wrong if the erotic aspect of his love for her would have been denied in this farewell. But I'm not surprised you don't get that, because
2. All your female characters are castrated, and with one exception, they just exist to feed your male characters lines.
3. The one exception is Tony Buddenbrook. She's your single female character who exists not just for the benefit of a male character but because you're actually interested in her. But even there, you're just allowing her some romantic notions misguiding her, not sexual longings. Poor Tony is castrated, too.
Yes, he does use the term "kastriert", "all Deine Frauenfiguren sind kastriert" . In the draft, at least; like I said, we don't have the actual letter, and even this draft was lost for eons, which is why it's not in the 1990s edition of the corrspondence, but I've come across it in the later Heinrich biographies. Bearing in mind Heinrich writes this in 1904 - meaning that several important female characters in Thomas Mann's oeuvre are yet to come, including old Lotte in "Lotte in Weimar" - it's, in terms of TM's early works, a palpable hit and that he bothered to make it shows Heinrich wasn't always so above quarelling for non-WWI reasons as he would have wanted to be.